Transcript: Film Shakeup at Netflix and Disney
Two of Hollywood's biggest jobs turn over amid brewing panic over what works anymore
Sean McNulty (00:04):
Welcome to The Ankler Podcast. This is Sean McNulty from The Wakeup Newsletter, here at The Ankler, here in New York City on Thursday, February 29th. I'm joined by Elaine Low and Richard Rushfield in Los Angeles. Richard, it's a leap year. What is your special tradition this year? What do we have?
Richard Rushfield (00:20):
Yeah, I got my special leap year socks and t-shirt that I break out every four years, and wear for good luck, and my leap year bandanna around my head, of course, and I'm going on a leap year pub crawl, and then-
Sean McNulty (00:34):
Oh, all right.
Richard Rushfield (00:34):
... coming home and looking for some great leap year content on all my services.
Sean McNulty (00:38):
I see. All right. I don't know. Elaine, do we have anything for Mr. Rushfield?
Elaine Low (00:42):
There's Leap Year, from Amy Adams, in-
Sean McNulty (00:44):
Sure.
Elaine Low (00:45):
... 2010, notably not a leap year.
Sean McNulty (00:47):
Oh. What?
Elaine Low (00:48):
Yeah, I looked it up. It's not a leap year.
Sean McNulty (00:50):
That seems misguided.
Elaine Low (00:51):
It got stuck in development hell for an extra two years. It was supposed to come out in 2008, maybe.
Sean McNulty (00:55):
Reshoots killed it.
Richard Rushfield (00:57):
Imagine if you planned your whole studio around owning leap year, and leap day, and then leap day falls on a Tuesday.
Sean McNulty (01:06):
Well, I mean, I could tell when leap year is in 2050, like you know? This isn't hard math here, but yeah, something might have gotten delayed here, Richard. I don't know, changing a studio head? I don't really know. I'm a little stumped here. We have to call Disney corporate communications and get the real story on this, Richard. I don't know.
Richard Rushfield (01:21):
Someone should get a script in development poised and ready for next time leap year falls on a Friday.
Sean McNulty (01:28):
That might be next... Well Elaine, maybe we'll put you in charge of that math, so 20-
Elaine Low (01:33):
Okay. all right.
Sean McNulty (01:33):
2028-
Elaine Low (01:33):
2028, yeah.
Sean McNulty (01:35):
Because if it's Thursday this year, just saying, maybe that is the magic window there, Richard, that can finally revive Hollywood's fortunes in four years. It'll be the leap year event of all leap year events, so-
Richard Rushfield (01:44):
I'm putting a writers room together to get-
Sean McNulty (01:47):
Exactly, for whatever studios are left by 2028, so there you go. Just a reminder of course, before we get started, you can catch The Ankler crew over on LA's number one NPR station, and Southern California's Public Radio Flagship Station 89.3 LAist every Thursday throughout the day as part of their Entertainment Thursday programming during Morning Edition, Air Talk, and All Things Considered. I was on there quite a bit this week. Elaine, were you joining as well, I believe?
Elaine Low (02:12):
Yes, talking about the Teamsters.
Sean McNulty (02:14):
All right, and of course, you can email us here at the podcast, Richard, Elaine, and myself, at podcast@theankler.com. Richard, this week, we have not one, but two new popes in studio land, quite a holy occasion. Did you see the white smoke from your house, or-
Richard Rushfield (02:29):
Yeah, it's-
Sean McNulty (02:29):
... what was going on?
Richard Rushfield (02:32):
... a crazy time. Shakeups in big film jobs, you don't get a lot of those.
Sean McNulty (02:35):
Well, much less two in 48 hours, I think, Richard.
Elaine Low (02:38):
It's a leap year miracle.
Sean McNulty (02:41):
Maybe, Elaine, I've heard worse theories, put it that way.
Richard Rushfield (02:44):
And even more remarkable, both are widely respected and well-liked choices, and they didn't recycle some old hack who they're giving the job to because he's had a job like this 40 times before, so they're all people that have been around, but sort of freshly working at this level, and people are excited for. I'm speaking of Dan Lin, who will be taking over Scott Stuber over at Netflix, in the film chief job, and David Greenbaum, who will be moving from Searchlight to heading big Disney, Disney Studios live action there.
Sean McNulty (03:21):
So, you know, Disney of course has... Well, they've got... I mean, this does not involve Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, or their animation division, you know, from the Wish, and Frozen, and so forth, Richard. This is just the Haunted Mansion’s, the Jungle Cruise’s, kind of the Mufasa coming up certainly, and I call it Disney Fox over at Disney, so those two divisions are what David's going to be overseeing.
Richard Rushfield (03:44):
Yeah, which lately has just been a lot of reboots and live action versions of old cartoons, but you go back just 10 years ago, they did all sorts of things. They made The Proposal, was a Disney movie, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. You know, they've made 20 kinds of Air Bud’s, you know? Here's a dog who plays basketball movie, you know? And under the Disney label, most of those did okay.
Sean McNulty (04:09):
It was a business. I mean, I remember Touchstone Pictures. Certainly, Disney has a long history of that, and certainly more in the Eisner years, certainly. If you want to go all the way back to Hollywood Pictures, I think it was there way back in the '90s, making a lot of movies, so Iger's certainly a franchise guy, Richard. I don't know that he's looking to spend a lot of money on originals, but you know, I guess you never know. I mean, since David Greenbaum is the president of Searchlight, that's where he's coming from, so they promoted from within on that. Searchlight of course the prestige, the art house, the independent label, whatever you want to call it of Disney. They have Poor Things, of course, as their Oscar contention this year. They've won the Oscar twice in, I think, the past six years, The Shape of Water and Nomadland, so certainly some success there. They've [inaudible 00:04:51] last year, so that's the pedigree, Richard, that's walking in the door there.